Number Eighty-Eight
by thestupidgenius1123
Summary: What if Jeb hadn't rescued Fang when he rescued the others? One-shot. AU.


**Number Eighty-Eight**

**A/N: I am totally stressed, and even my stress-relieving hobby of writing is failing me right now. **

**17. That is how many stories I have, sitting on my hard drive, waiting to be finished and published. I just went through all of them, reread them, and couldn't write a single word. **

**Something is wrong with me. **

**On top of that, real life is beating me to a freaking pulp. So, we'll see how my life figures it's shit out. **

**I really, really want to be able to say that one of my stories is going to make an appearance soon, but I think the soonest I'll be able to put up a real project is 2015. Sorry. **

**On a better, happier note, I read through some of my old feedback for TAoD today and realized how much I loved each and every one of you. I'm going to have to make it a point of responding to all my reviews because this is just ridiculous. Thank you all so freaking much. **

**[Summary: What if Jeb hadn't rescued Fang when he rescued the others? One-shot. AU.]**

**I think you'll catch on. It's depressing and came out of nowhere, and just gets darker and darker so…beware. Brave readers, ahead. **

**Thanks for visiting. **

FANG 

Eighty-seven.

That is the number of mutants I've retired.

Eighty-seven.

That is a number I can never forget.

At first, I figured it would be easy. It was my way of surviving, and I was on the brink of doing just about anything to live another day. The School had some pretty sick, twisted ways of breaking mutants like me, and they almost, _almost _succeeded.

I wasn't sent down the same path as the others, though. For some reason, a stroke of luck or maybe a curse, I ended up working for them, not running from them. It sounds better, but it isn't. Sometimes dying is better than being the killer.

Anyways, at first I thought I could handle it. I thought I would be able to sleep at night, and I thought that I wouldn't regret allowing them to own me that way.

I never thought I'd remember every single one of their faces. Or their last words, or their last breaths. I never thought I would hate myself for allowing it to happen, even if it was keeping me alive.

But eventually is eats away at you. Eventually, you don't care. You'd rather be the victim than the killer, rather be the condemned than the executioner. You think nothing will be more important than your life, but there always is something.

For me, after years of guilt and hate, that something was them. It was my mission to protect them. To cheat the system for them.

They bring in the next one and I am floored. Number eighty-eight. They are always just numbers - faceless, soulless numbers. It's easier that way. She is number eighty-eight.

Except she is more than that.

She sees me through a curtain of dirty blonde hair but her eyes stay emotionless. I'm sure she doesn't remember me. The scientists bring her forward and begin rattling off her information. What kind of genetic mutation she has. What her experiment number is. How old she is.

I don't listen. I remember. I know her. I know her number is 5236. I know that she is 2% bird, and that she is four months older than I am.

They have her wrists bound behind her. She stares at me. Her name rolls around in my thoughts and my memories of her make my whole body cold.

_She's number eighty-eight. Nothing else. Not anymore. _

They are called the Flock. I know of them; everyone at the School does. The most important experiments they've ever made, and the most successful. Until they got too powerful. Until they got out of control.

I'd been created for that group. I remember being in the same room as her, I remember being trained to join her. And then, for some reason, I wasn't shipped out with them. I stayed.

I can tell she doesn't remember. She has no idea that, under my lab coat, I have wings like her. She has no idea that I trained right beside her when we were children. That faceless, brunette boy probably has no connection to me, her _executioner_, in her mind. She has no idea that jokingly calling me Fang _once _when we were four has given me my permanent name. No one ever cared enough to name me, and I never wanted to sever myself from her.

And I surely can't tell her now.

"Make sure you do it right, or Batchelder will have your head," the man says as he hands her over. "This one's important."

I nod. She sure as hell is. She'd been my first friend ever, even if she doesn't know who I am. She'd been my reason to live in this hellhole. I can remember the others, too, the others of her Flock. But she is permanently embedded into my brain.

She has no idea who she is to me.

"Hello," I say, unable to stop myself. I've never, ever made small talk with them. It's easier to lethally inject someone you've never spoken to. But…I know this one. And this won't be easy. Ever.

She narrows her eyes at me and doesn't speak.

"Please lie down on the table," I say.

She hates me. She hates me and she is the reason I am alive and I can't take it. I want to tell her everything, have her remember me, apologize for what I've done and what I am going to do. But that will make this even harder.

_This wasn't supposed to happen this way. _

I don't meet her eyes as I strap her in. I get both of her feet and one of her wrists, strapping the Velcro tightly around her limbs to restrain her. The entire time, her eyes burn a whole into the side of my head. Finally, she says, "Stop."

Her voice…I obey her without a thought. I stop, something I have never done at the request of a mutant on my table before, and everything freezes.

"If you're going to kill me like a death row inmate," she says slowly, deliberately, "you're going to look at me."

I glance up at her face, nodding, and finish securing her. She frowns at me.

"No. You're going to look me in the eyes," she says in a whisper. _I can't._

"You're going to remember _me_. I will not be just another job for you." _That would be impossible. _

"If I can't be a coward, then neither can you."

_God, how am I supposed to do this?_

I keep going even though it physically hurts. I go through protocol, making sure to document each step precisely. I begin jotting down the specifics.

_Experiment received: 3:05 PM. _

"My name is Max," she says.

"Stop," I say. "Don't speak."

"My name is Max and I'm eighteen. I have four siblings. Iggy's eighteen, and he's blind. Nudge-"

"Stop."

"_No_. I won't be just another job," she says again, her voice firm. "You'll remember me not as your Saturday appointment but as the girl you killed. I'm going to _fucking haunt you_."

_You already do._

"I'm sorry," I say, my voice rattling like I've never used it before. _Experiment restrained: 3:08 PM. _

"It won't hurt," I promise, as if that makes things better. She laughs, and even though it has a sinister ring to it, it's beautiful.

"I'm not afraid of pain. Or death. I hate them both, and hate you for forcing them on me, but I'm not afraid." She closes her eyes. "Not anymore."

I frown and poke the IV into her arm. Her breath hitches. I hate myself as much as she hates me, I think.

"I won't do it yet," I whisper.

"Like it would make a difference," she says, her voice changing with anxiety.

_Experiment prepped: 3:11 PM._ My script is barely legible, now. My hands shake.

"How do you do it?" she asks. "You must block it out, huh? Ignore it? Pretend it isn't real? How else could you live with yourself?"

I say nothing.

"_Why _do you do it?"

"I have to," I blurt, clumsily prepping the injection. "They'll kill me. Get rid of me. This is my only choice."

"I'd rather die than kill innocent people," she says. "Wouldn't you?"

The needle is ready. The hard part comes next; the gut-wrenching, horrifying, soul-destroying part.

I turn to her. She is beautiful, even like this. The plain clothes they've given her only purify her more. She is a vision.

"Someone told me once that I needed to _want _to live, to _fight _to live," I say, my voice now a rasping mess. Her eyes fly open and she studies me for a long time. Neither of us speaks. Then, "I'm trying."

Then, her turn. "Oh."

"Do you remember me?" I say, because I have to know. Her eyes are different now, as if memories are returning to her. I hope they are.

"Yes," she whispers. "Yes. I called you Fang…What's your real name?"

Do I make one up? No. She might as well know.

"Fang," I say, the singular word barely audible. I reached down and my fingers touch hers and she twitches her digits against mine, her eyes a swirl of a million emotions.

"Yes," she says, her voice gentle now. "Yes, I remember you."

"You saved my life," I say. "And there's no way I can go through with this."

I knew it all along, even as I prepared her. Now, I leave, my mind spinning. I know what this means but it doesn't matter. She's more important. I could never take her life. I walk down the hall, retrieve the keys, and then return. She watches me unstrap her.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"They're going to see, over the cameras," I say. "They'll be here soon."

"Wait."

"You need to get out as soon as you can, and don't look back. And get your family somewhere they won't find you. They shouldn't come after you again, but…don't ever let your guard down."

"I…" she trails off. "Thank you."

I watch her.

"Will you follow me?" she whispers. "Come with me."

I have no time to answer before Batchelder himself is in the doorway.

"What are you doing?" His angry voice makes her jump. I step between them.

"Let her go," I say. "Just her. She'll be the only exception. Just let her go."

Batchelder won't do it; I can see it in his eyes. I push her toward the door.

"Let her go. You have to just let her go."

"I have to report an expiration today, you know the protocol. Do your job."

"I will _not _do this," I say firmly. I swing the door open and shove her into the hall. I see her turn, see her begin down the hallway. And then she turns around. She hesitates. She watches. She won't leave me behind, not this time. I pray she will.

"It will be you or her," Batchelder says. "You know what happens if you refuse your duty."

I only see her face. Her fear. That's all I see. Then there are reinforcements. Two men stopping her from running to my rescue. No one is there to restrain me, but I don't put up a fight anyways.

I know why Batchelder will let her go. He cares about her, even if he hates that he does. She's important to him in a way he'll never admit, and he will do whatever it takes to push off her expiration.

So will I.

"Stop!"

She's not happy. I wish she weren't here for this.

"You have to promise to let her go. Report that she's been retired, not me. Tell the Director that she's taken care of."

Batchelder nods imperceptibly.

Everything else after that is easy. I know I promised her a long time ago that I would fight, but this was a different thing entirely. Before, we'd both been relatively safe. Slowly, I'd misreported the experiments retired. Two years ago, a boy that had been killed was reported as experiment 7993: Angel. Then a couple months later, the other boy, the young one. The Gasman. Six months ago, the Director was told that Iggy was killed. And a couple weeks ago, Nudge.

As far as the Director was concerned, the Flock had been totally wiped out except for Max. I had hoped they wouldn't find her. That I'd be able to report her before they found her. That I'd be able to get them to stop looking before they even discovered her.

I hadn't.

At least this way, they'd never be hunted again. Fighting for them seemed more useful than fighting for myself. I'd been fighting for myself for so long, and all it had gotten me was guilt.

_It will be you or her. _

I see her, before he hooks me up to the IV. She's struggling against the men who are holding her back. This is why I told her to not look back but she did anyways, and now I mouth, _Go_.

She plants her feet firmly on the clean white tile and her jaw clenches. _No_.

_It will be you or her. _

She stares into my eyes. It all flashes between us. Everything that we could've had if I'd ended up in that car with her, twelve years ago when Jeb drove them away to safety. If I'd been apart of the rescued instead of the condemned.

All the pain and suffering and friendship and comfort that we could've had. All of the what-ifs. We experience a lifetime of them in ten seconds.

"It's okay," I say. "It's okay."

She doesn't understand why I'm not fighting it. She probably won't ever understand.

"Wait! Just wait one second, Jeb, _goddamn it_!"

But she doesn't know what I know. She doesn't know about the eighty-seven before this. She doesn't know how I've suffered just trying to survive. Death isn't the worst thing, really, and there are many things that I fear more.

It will be one of us. There's no haggling with the system, not in a place as soulless as the School. No, one of us has to be the one. Escaping, fighting, and running would only make it worse. I know this.

But she and the others will be safe, now. And my job is done.

I won't let them label her anymore.

She'll always be Max.

And I'll always be number eighty-eight.


End file.
